The Basin and Range Region region that extends down into Mexico is called the Central Mexican Plateau, also known as the Mexican Altiplano. This area is a large arid-to-semiarid plateau that occupies much of northern and central Mexico. The plateau averages 5,988 feet above sea level and it extends from the United States border in the north to the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt in the south, and is bounded on the west by the Sierra Madre Occidental and on the east by the Sierra Madre Oriental.

Where the Mexican Basin and Range Region region narrows in the state of Zacatecas, there is a low east-west mountain range which divides the plateau into northern and southern parts. Although once considered as two plateaus, now, geographers consider these to be two sections of one plateau.

These two sections are called the Northern Plateau (Mesa del Norte) and Central Plateau (Mesa Central).

The southern plateau is higher than the northern section of the Mexican Plateau, averaging 6,600 feet in elevation and extends across the states of Aguascalientes, Jalisco, Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Querétaro, Michoacán.

Several of Mexico′s most prominent cities are located in the valleys of the southern plateau. Many of these large metro centers are found in the extreme southern area of the Mexican Plateau including: Guadalajara, Leon, Querétaro, Morelia, Mexico City, Toluca, Cuernavaca, and Puebla.

Furthermore, the southern plateau contains numerous valleys originally formed by ancient lakes, and has the Meseta Central Matorral covering much of the southern area of the Mesa Central, which sub-region is very dry and contains a shrublands biome.

Much of the Mesa Central is drained by the Rio Grande de Santiago and its tributaries and flow to the Pacific Ocean. The eastern portion of the Mesa Central is drained by the Rio Pánuco.

In the extreme southwest of the Mesa Central is the Bajio dry forest, which is a tropical dry broad leaf forest sub-region and occupies the lower portions of the Rio Grande de Santiago basin. In this sub-region, higher elevation are of mixed forests of broadleaf and coniferous trees.

There are temperate coniferous forests that rise up to the snow line atop the volcanoes that surround the southern and western edges of the Basin and Range Region region.

The Royal Roads (Los Caminos Reales)